Robert C. Cordes (see photo) has become vice president of the St. Louis hub of Trans World Airlines, to oversee its operations at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and manage the integration of TWA and American Airlines operations. He has been managing director of the transition. Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, vice president-airport operations, will continue to oversee airport operations outside of St. Louis.
Rocketdyne has completed acceptance testing on the first flight version of its new RS-68 rocket engine, built to power Boeing's Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). The flight engine will be shipped from its test stand at Stennis Space Center, Miss., to the Delta IV production plant at Decatur, Ala., for integration into the Delta IV common booster core set for launch next spring. Overall, RS-68s have accumulated more than 16,000 sec. of hot-fire testing.
Sincerely, Kenneth E. Gazzola Executive Vice President/Publisher
As is the case with other good ideas, shareholder value has moved in the last 10 years from being ignored, to being rejected, to becoming self-evident. It is invoked in annual reports, briefings with financial analysts and press releases, and it's now embraced as the mantra of corporate board members and top management of most publicly traded airlines and aerospace companies. In fact, many executives will tell you maximizing shareholder value has become their primary responsibility.
An American team, including officials from the U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Defense Attache's Office in Beijing and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., is at Lingshui Airfield on Hainan Island, China, to handle the disassembly of a damaged Navy EP-3 surveillance aircraft. The four engine-propeller assemblies were removed June 23. The team expects to have the aircraft taken apart by July 4 so it can be loaded on a Russian-operated An-124 for return to the U.S. The aircraft was damaged Mar. 31 in a midair collision with a Chinese interceptor.
Thomas C. Teebagy, Jr., (see photo) has been named vice president of the Omnirel unit of International Rectifier. He was the Leominster, Mass.-based Omnirel's senior vice president-operations before the company was acquired.
Alan Erickson (see photos) has been promoted to director of corporate sales from director of international sales and Curtis Draper to director of corporate marketing from director of sales and marketing for finished products, both for Howmet Castings, Darien, Conn.
Concepts NREC has supercharged its turbomachinery design tools by partnering with Fluent, a major computational fluid dynamics house. Fluent's general purpose CFD tools are added to Concepts NREC's Agile Engineering Design System to give more in-depth analysis of critical elements and to handle areas that aren't traditional blade row design, such as inlets, volutes, cooling passages, and secondary cavities (see graphic). Engine geometry can be transferred between the Fluent and Concepts NREC software.
The Ukrainian aviation industry brought three transports to the Paris air show while Russian industry brought one, but both countries have a short order list for new aircraft--five for the Ukrainians from their own Ministry of Defense and four for the Russians, split evenly between commercial and Russian government users.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will let an artificial intelligence program pick which science images to send back to Earth in the shuttle-launched Three Corner Sat satellite mission next year. The onboard Continuous Activity Scheduling, Planning, Execution and Replanning (Casper) algorithms will decide the priority of data and may erase some stored images before they are transmitted (http://casper.jpl.nasa.gov). Casper will also handle satellite housekeeping. Three Corner Sat will have three 30-lb.
The Pentagon aims to drastically expand its missile defense research and development program after the Bush Administration decided to stop limiting its spending to programs that could be compliant with the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
Any President's priceless treasure is his credibility, doubly so in his role as commander-in-chief. President Bush, his Administration in its infancy, is squandering his trustworthiness on the paramount subject of national defense. He is opening a new credibility gap that could dog the rest of his Administration.
Mike Clasper has become deputy chief executive of London-based BAA plc. He was president of the global homecare and new business segments of Procter and Gamble.
Key elements of the U.S. aviation community are split on how well and how soon high-technology systems will help reduce runway incursions at major airports, but they agree that low-tech initiatives are needed as well. The FAA's management of runway safety, under review, also is at issue.
British government transport officials labeled informal talks with U.S. counterparts in London on a new U.K.-U.S. aviation agreement as ``positive and constructive.'' Although no concrete progress was made during the first discussions since last summer, there were signs that the U.K. was willing to drop more difficult demands regarding cabotage and foreign ownership limits in the U.S. London appears anxious to strike a deal before a European Court of Justice ruling, expected in October, on the European Commission's claim to possess the right to negotiate with the U.S.
Raytheon demonstrated an advanced targeting pod (ATP) for fighters at the air show that would be used to identify airborne or ground targets at night and provide an accurate location for aiming a precision weapon, capabilities that have been hard to package in a single system.
The White House is in a peck of trouble on Capitol Hill regarding defense. Predictably, House and Senate members who represent B-1B basing constituencies in Kansas, Georgia and Idaho are protesting the proposed bomber cutback (see p. 33), albeit on strategic rather than economic grounds. Firing off a bipartisan letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, lawmakers asserted that a one-third cut of the B-1 fleet would contravene a basic tenet of U.S. strategy, namely long-range precision strike. The B-1 flies faster and carries more than any other U.S.
V-22 woes are about to claim more victims, with layoffs looming as production of the tiltrotor is slowed to allow prime contractors Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing to fix design problems that have plagued the aircraft. The number of layoffs and when they will occur hasn't been resolved yet. But the goal is to ``lose the minimum number of people,'' says Michael Tkach, Bell Boeing V-22 program director. Boeing has about 1,500 people employed on V-22 work, while Bell has about 2,800 employees associated with the program.
William Mellon has become managing director for media relations of Northwest Airlines. He headed his own corporate communications consulting firm in the Washington area.
The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a $59-billion transportation spending bill for next year that fully funds a $3.3-billion airport grants program, a $2.9-billion FAA capital budget and close to 100% of the FAA's operating expenses. Air traffic management spending would climb to nearly $5.5 billion, close to $50 million more than requested and almost $300 million higher than the current level.
Frontier Airlines pilots ratified an amendment to their contract that will provide salary, overtime pay and per diem increases totaling about $3.8 million per year, or nearly $11,500 per pilot, according to a company estimate. Salary increases ranged from 14.5-35.8%. The five-year contract was signed in May 2000 and amended last month.
GE Engines has entered into a $30-million, five-year agreement to maintain 24 CFM56-3C1 engines that power Regal Airways Inc.'s fleet of Boeing 737-300s.
Eurocopter has sold 10 EC130B4 emergency medical helicopters to a U.S. company, contracted for two more EC135s with a German air rescue operation and signed a research and technology partnership with French and German agencies to bolster European helicopter development.
Hainan Airlines, the largest regional carrier in China, plans to implement international routes and become the No. 4 carrier in the country, after Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines. Hainan Airlines officials told the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) that the carrier should not be involved in the state-ordered consolidation of the country's airlines and merged with any other carriers.
China's fourth largest airline alliance, made up of six regional carriers, is scheduled to be established soon in Shanghai. To be known as the China Sky Aviation Enterprise Group Alliance (CSAEGA), the organization will include Shandong Airlines (SHAL), Shanghai Airlines (SAL), Sichuan Airlines (SCAL), Shenzhen Airlines (SZAL), Wuhan Airlines (WAL) and China Postal Airlines (CPA). Combined, the airlines last year carried 8.1 million passengers, representing 35% of the domestic market.
